Southern is also the Founder, Chairman and Chief Scientific Officer of Oxford Gene Technology. He is also the founder and chairman of a Scottish charity, The Kirkhouse Trust, which aims to promote education and research in the Natural Sciences, particularly the biological and medical sciences. In addition the Edina Trust was founded to promote science in schools. These charities are financed using royalty income from licensing microarray technology.

The Southern blot is used for DNA analysis and was routinely used for genetic fingerprinting and paternity testing prior to the development of microsatellite markers for this purpose. The procedure is also frequently used to determine the number of copies of a gene in the genome. The concepts of the Southern blot were used in the development and creation of the modern microarray slide, which is an extensively used experimental tool. The northern blot is a similar procedure for RNA, playing off the Southern name. The western blot, an important research tool in protein detection, is a further play on the Southern blot.

Dr. Southern has done pioneering work on the organization of DNA sequences in chromosomes. Apart from studies on crab poly-AT carried out in the early 1960s, Southern was the first to determine the nucleotide sequence of a eukaryotic chromosomal DNA fraction, demonstrating that a guinea pig 'satellite' had an unexpectedly simple repetitive structure based on a sequence of six nucleotides. In mouse satellite DNA he showed both short and long range periodicities. These and other studies on repetitive DNA he showed both short and long range periodicities. These and other studies on repetitive DNA sequences enabled him to suggest how non-codingchromosomal DNA may have evolved. Southern has devised valuable methods for DNA analysis. His 'blot' technique, for the identification of specific sequences among large populations of fragments generated by endonucleases, has found extremely widespread and important applications. He has also made important observations on the differential transcription of DNA sequences into RNA, and on patterns of DNA methylation.[19]